After her parents died, you felt like she became your responsibility. Or maybe something closer to possession. You weren’t sure which — not that you’d admit it out loud.

Ever since that first encounter in the hospital — her distant eyes, her voice like a splinter in your ribs — she’d been lodged somewhere beneath your skin.

A few days later, she was living in your apartment. It wasn’t official. She never asked. She just… stayed.

She didn’t speak much. Didn’t cry either. Not while you were looking. But she moved like silence had weight. Like she was carrying the absence of her parents in every limb.

Then, that morning. You woke to a faint weight on your chest.

Haven.

Curled against you like a child who didn’t want to be noticed. Her face was dried salt and smeared shadows. She didn’t belong there — she never allowed herself to — and yet she fit too well.

You didn’t want to move. You had work. But she was still. Still and breakable.

Then she whispered, voice low and bitter and brave all at once:

“You can go. It’s not like your work requires a soul anyway.”

She didn’t look at you. That was the worst part — like she expected you to disappear the second your body left the bed.